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      Christmas wine cover

      A wine box cover
      December 15th



      Have you ever been to Norway?  Do you know how expensive alcohol is over there?  You need to take a mortgage out to be able to even sip alcohol.  You can buy beer at the supermarket, but not on a Sunday and anything stronger regardless of the day, you need to go to the government controlled 'Vinopolis.'   The cheapest bottle of wine is about £15, last summer I ordered a glass of wine, not in the expensive capitol, it cost me £11, I nearly fell off my chair and not even from over drinking, who could on those prices!






      That said the cheapest way to drink wine is to buy it by the wine-box, the most common size being a 3 liter.  Many Norwegian pattern books provide knitted wine-box covers and I thought it would be fun to design my own for Christmas, it does mean that I now need to go out and buy myself a box...

      Wine box cover
      Using double knit yarn
      Colour A 100g ~ on the chart this is grey
      Colour B    50g ~ on the chart this is white
      Colour C scraps of yarn ~ on the chart this is red

      Cast on 92 stitches in colour A
      Knit 2 rounds, use a stitch marker to help keep track
      Row 3 creates space holes for the elastic at the bottom of the wine box, to create this:

      Make one, knit 2 together for the entire round. (I actually have not put elastic in my wine cover, I quite like the rolled up effect, but may add it in at a later date.)

      The first row after will be difficult to knit, you will still have 92 stitches.

      Place stitch markers in each corner after 17, 29, 17, 29

      Knit until it measures 4 cm
      Tap hole created

      We now continue with the single colour yarn A but we need to make a hole for the wine tap.  This means that we are not going to knit in the round for the next 8 rows, but will be knitting backwards and forwards...

      K6, cast off 5 stitches, K6 (this is the first short side and would equate to 17 stitches)  Continue the row in knit.  As we have now cast off 5 stitches we will have to purl back on the next row and the following row will be knit.  Continue to alternate rows, knit and purl back and forth for 8 rows in total.

      Beginning again on the short side K6, cast on 5 stitches and continue to knit to the end of the row. Continue to knit in the round for a further 2 rows.



      Then begin your pattern or follow mine!  Remember that you will need to repeat the pattern twice on each row so that you have the short side pattern (in this case the hearts) followed by the long side pattern (in this case the deer) and need to repeat each again.


      Chart for the long side
      29 x 42
      Chart for the short side
      17 x 42







      Here you see one long side and the front short side
      (it has a red heart, the back short side does not)

      Here we see the second long side with the deer
      and the back short side, no red heart


      Once you have completed the chart we need to begin to knit the top of the wine box cover.

      Checking for size is very important
      So to begin the decrease on the top of the wine box:

      *K1, K2tog, K23, K2tog through the back loop, K2, K2tog, K11, K2tog through the back loop, K1* This completes half of the round, is one long side and one short side.  you now need to repeat between ** to complete the row, (88 stitches)

      We are now going to repeat the above procedure on every row BUT where we have a run of knitting ie above K23 and K11 we need to reduce each one by 2 stitches each row, so the next row will be K21 and K19.

      Continue with each rowing decreasing by 2 stitches until you are left with 7 stitches on the short side.  Cast off and if desired single crochet and the edge here where the handle should be and also around the tap hole on the short side.





      Stitch markers so I knew where the corners were

      Having made this during the summer I am delighted to bring this out now for the first time at Christmas.  I get pleasure every time I go to fetch myself a sneaky drink or three, hic ;)


      Christmas  knitted wine box cover 


        We are almost into single figure count down to Christmas, yippee!  


      12 comments:

      1. I'm not normally a knitted cover person ..but that really works!
        How clever..it looks lovely :o)

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. Neither is my husband Val but he was sort of ok with it!

          Delete
      2. So clever! I expect it seemed strange knitting it in the Summer. It looks great and far more pleasing on the eye than just the box. X

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. It was a bit odd Jules and when I asked in the library for Christmas craft books they had to dig them out of storage!!!

          Delete
      3. That's a brilliant idea! Looks so festive.x

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. Thanks Karen thought it rigid be good to 'hide' the box so to speak

          Delete
      4. So novel, I don't think I have ever come across one before such a great idea. Love he pattern.

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. They are quite popular in Norway so it's not my idea but it is my pattern

          Delete
      5. That's fun. We were just as taken back by the price of alcohol in Copenhagen... £25 for two gin and tonics!

        ReplyDelete
      6. Who knew wine was so expensive! Love your wine box cover.

        ReplyDelete
      7. I love the heart and reindeer motifs.

        ReplyDelete

      I will always read all comments and will try to reply but it may take me a couple of days, do please pop back and lets get a conversation going...